HAS there ever been an occasion in the history of tennis when police were called to keep apart rival fans? Well, no, not until yesterday that is.
However, only in Australia could the love of a good pint of beer defuse, rather than inflame, the situation and turn the whole evening into a party. That is exactly what happened at Melbourne Park where the Australian Open is being staged. The surreal scene unfolded after the local constabulary had to be called to the ground to separate the Greeks supporting Cypriot Marcos Baghdatis and the Croats, who had turned up to shout on Ivan Ljubicic.
The rival groups came faceto-face a few hours before their favourites met on the Rod Laver Arena in the Australian Open quarter-final. Both groups were football fans who had adopted Baghdatis and Ljubicic as sporting heroes.
The Baghdatis group turned up in blue football tops, the colour of the local Greek side South Melbourne Hellas. The Ljubicic supporters were in their Croatian national strips. There are huge Greek and Croatian communities in Melbourne and, although police kept the groups apart, their mutual love of beer brought them together in the end.
Both sides kept chanting at each other but slowly the atmosphere thawed and by the time the match was about to start both Croats and Greeks were hugging each other.
They then made theirway up to the stadium where they created a carnival atmosphere. The Greeks unfurled a giant national flag and let off some blue balloons while the Croats chanted their way between every point.
In the end, it was Baghdatis who won a match in which the atmosphere was fun-loving rather than violent.
Following Baghdatis' stunning fourth-round victory against Andy Roddick, the emerging talent wrote another chapter in his fairytale run with his success against Ljubicic, the No.7 seed.
Baghdatis, who was named man of the year in Cyprus after reaching the fourth round last year, played superbly in the first two sets, unleashing his full range of shots to grab a two-set lead before Ljubicic fought back to win the next two and force the match into a decider.
Baghdatis, 20, fended off two break points in a tense third game then ripped a cross-court forehand past Ljubicic to gain the decisive break in the next game.
He coolly held his remaining three service games to win 6-4, 6-2, 4-6, 3-6, 6-3 and advance to tomorrow's semifinal against David Nalbandian, the Argentine fourth seed, who beat Fabrice Santoro earlier in the day.
"I started thinking a lot and putting some doubts in my head, " Baghdatis said. "He started serving well and got some confidence. It was going so fast I couldn't control the game. But in the fifth set I started hitting the ball again."
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